Happy 25th Anniversary to Spice Girls’ second studio album Spiceworld, originally released in Japan November 1, 1997, in the UK November 3, 1997, and in the US November 4, 1997.
Victoria Beckham, Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, Melanie Chisholm and Geri Horner (née Halliwell) had already conquered their native homeland England—and most of the globe — with Spice in 1996. Once their first album stepped onto American shores, simply put, it was just another territory to be taken by the quintet. And so it was. Looking back now, in the era of Blur, Björk and Bad Boy, the Spice Girls were a funky, approachable and fresh alternative. They were also well studied. Their research had encompassed the musical urbanity of their American predecessors En Vogue and TLC, as well as the DIY model of their British foremothers Bananarama. Pairing that education with their own musical and visual disposition, the Spice Girls were peerless upon arrival.
But, it wasn’t enough for the Spice Girls to be musically formidable, they scaled the business world too. Of course, the pundits, mostly men, fumed. They attempted, through harsh critique written or otherwise, to obstruct the Spice Girls. It was to no avail. Multiple endorsement deals—from Pepsi-Cola to Chupa-Chups—kept their brand omnipresent. Additionally, they began work on their own feature film, a satirical, A Hard Days Night inspired project. Filming started in the summer of 1997 with a Christmas reveal posited for the same year. As the media dubbed “Spice Mania” was reaching peak hysteria in mid-1997, the group went to work writing and recording their sophomore set, Spiceworld. Aligned again with their principal co-writers and producers from Spice—Richard Stannard, Matt Rowe, Paul Wilson and Andy Watkins—the Spice Girls shut out the madness with attention to detail and focus on content.
Spice, at its heart, was a British rewrite of R&B Americana aesthetics in a pop context. Spiceworld sought to maintain that artistic standard, but open their sound. This was partially achieved by switching out the contemporary rhythm and blues of Spice for archetypal black music hallmarks for use on their second LP: jazz, doo-wop, Motown and disco. These facets of R&B had become so integrated into the general frame of pop music in years past that, to many listeners, they’d become staple instruments of the pop genre toolbox itself.
The categories of jazz (“The Lady is a Vamp”), doo-wop (“Too Much”), Motown (“Stop”) and disco (“Never Give Up on the Good Times”) were evocatively constructed pastiches on these differing forms of R&B now seen largely as “pop.” This, of course, is what the pop genre excels at when at its best: proper pastiche. There were exceptions to this vintage methodology though. Cuts like “Saturday Night Divas,” “Denying” and “Outer Space Girls”—B-side to the album’s second single “Too Much”—graciously nodded to the 1980s rhythm and blues variants of synth-funk, New Jack Swing and freestyle.
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However, Spiceworld was about opening the Spice Girls' sound to other musical cravings. From the lush Spanish folk and orchestral aural ballet of “Viva Forever” to the reggae boogie-bump of “Walk of Life” (the second B-side to “Too Much”), these songs reinforced that the Girls weren’t just R&B junkies. But it was “Spice Up Your Life” that was the LP’s creative behemoth. An infectious slice of Latin groove, it was one of their most demonstrative evolutionary jumps, sonically speaking.
Central to the function of these (musical) components were the Girls themselves, lyrical and vocal entities cognizant of their respective strengths. Two, three, four and five-part harmonic blends and shared leads boasted five distinctive voices. A contralto (Horner), two sopranos (Beckham, Bunton) and two mezzo-sopranos (Brown, Chisholm) made the rocky sugar rush of “Move Over” a fine example of their chemistry. Thematically, they ante upped with “Do It,” the album's text centerpiece, confronting female oppression in the song’s first verse, “I will not be told / keep your mouth shut, keep your legs shut / get back in your place! / Blameless, shameless, damsel in disgrace! / Who cares what they say / because the rules are for breaking! / Who made them anyway? / You gotta show what you feel, don't hide!”
It was clear, the Spice Girls weren't resting on their laurels for their second outing. Spiceworld hit shelves in the United Kingdom on November 3, 1997, it followed suit stateside the next day. The record was received sensationally and as of this writing has moved over 14 million units worldwide. Four singles were lifted from the LP from October 1997 to July 1998: “Spice Up Your Life” (UK# 1, US #18), “Too Much” (UK #1, US #9), “Stop” (UK #2, US #16), and “Viva Forever” (UK#1).
Critically, tastemakers of the day lazily tried to lump the Spice Girls into an incidental wave of homogenous pre-fab pop that came after their rise. In the years since, the music on Spiceworld has beaten back the criticism, proving that the Spice Girls were not merely “a product.”
One of the most exciting albums of 1997, their second LP facilitated even stronger turns in their future recording career, collectively and individually. Twenty-five years removed from its release, Spiceworld is as bold, colorful and musical as pop gets and it doesn’t get any better than this.
Quentin Harrison is the author of Record Redux: Spice Girls, the first written overview of the Spice Girls’ collective and individual canon which was originally published in 2016. He recently published an overhauled version of the book, which can be added to your library here. Harrison has published four other books in his 'Record Redux Series' on Carly Simon, Donna Summer, Madonna and Kylie Minogue.
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Editor's note: this anniversary tribute was originally published in 2017 and has since been edited for accuracy and timeliness.